Tuesday, October 1, 2013

More Mo Marcus at Dell

It took me three posts in a row (one, two, three) to come to a conclusion on the artist of Dell's The Monkees #1 (if by coming to a conclusion one means agreeing with Mark Evanier's identification of the artist.) It's Mo Marcus. Jerry Marcus later confirmed Mark's ID; Dick Giordano, the artist hired to do that issue, asked Jerry's father to pencil the job for him. José Delbo, of course, drew The Monkees from #2 on.

Who's Minding the Mint? (Aug/67) is Dell's Movie Classic one-shot adapting the film produced by comic book artist and Stooge-in-law Norm Maurer. Its art has been attributed to Delbo and then Henry Scapelli, but the pencils are by Mo Marcus; the skinny, angular limbs are the trademark seen in that first issue of The Monkees. (These are Jim Hutton and Walter Brennan, by the way; Marcus is able to capture their likenesses without the traced still-photo paste-ups that typefied Scarpelli's Dell tie-in work at this point).

The writer escapes me so far. The inker is a question, too. Giordano and company (Sal Trapani and Frank McLaughlin)? On some pages I wonder if I see John Tartaglione's inkwork, but at Dell he pencilled much more often than he inked. The Mo Marcus art that I've seen signed at Charlton was inked by Rocco Mastroserio, so maybe I'm not recognizing Marcus's own inks here.

2 comments:

Marcus did a very good job on Walter Brennan's likeness, particularly in.panel 2. Inking on the page shown may be McLaughlin, although there are parts that remind me of Joe Giella. Thanks again for delving into such interesting and rarely discussed territory.

Thank you, Nick. I find New Dell, like other esoteric Sixties companies,fascinating.

In this tie-in Mo Marcus also had to capture the likenesses of Milton Berle, Bob Denver, Joey Bishop, Dorothy Provine, and Jack Gilford. The only one I felt he missed was Victor Buono (and the character's Captain Kangaroo mustache may have contributed to that).